


A Great Many Things

by DustyDyke



Category: Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Family Drama, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Lesbian Character, Original Character(s), POV John Watson, THIS IS INDULGENT, Uncle-Niece Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyDyke/pseuds/DustyDyke
Summary: “It was on the evening of a Friday in April, in the year 1884, when I received the telegram that would change much more of my life than I understood at the time.”When dr. Watson gets word of his brother’s widow dying, he travels to her funeral, where he meets his teenage niece, Maggie, for the first time.Suddenly faced with the reality of having guardianship of a young girl, while living with his friend, the great Sherlock Holmes, Watson is in uncharted territory...
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	A Great Many Things

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t really write a good summary, and I’m not really expecting anyone to read this, but yeah! This is based on the original stories by ACD, and also the 1984 tv show starring Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes.
> 
> Yes, this might be my version of having a self insert, but oh well! I’m writing this because it’s fun and self indulgent

It was on the evening of a Friday in April, in the year 1884, when I received the telegram that would change much more of my life than I understood at the time.

It was around 7 o’clock, on a day that had been quite a bit hotter than normal in Spring, which meant that the windows were cracked open in hopes of allowing a cool breeze inside. This, of course, also meant that all the cacophony of a city such as London was not muffled, and the sounds of playing children, horses on cobblestone, merchants, drunks, and other London occupants, drifted inside and made conversation quite difficult.

On that particular night, Holmes and I were sitting in our comfortable, if not quite eccentrically cluttered, sitting room on Baker Street. There had been no case for my friend in almost two weeks and I could feel him getting increasingly aggravated by the day, spending long hours on his violin, composing, what sounded to me, like annoyed and hurried melodies.

Personally, it had been a strenuous week at my medical practice, with several patients suffering from smallpox and measles, and I was enjoying my night of rest, with a glass of brandy in one hand, and a novel in the other.

Holmes was sitting sprawled in a comfortable armchair, reading, what seemed to me, several different papers in different languages, and smoking his long pibe. Now and then he would throw one of the papers to ground with an exclamation of disappointment or boredom.

On the third time he did this, in quite a melodramatic fashion, I finally gave up on attempting to focus on my novel - it was quite impossible in the cacophony of London’s evening anyways.

“My dear friend,” I uttered, “what on Earth are you finding so disappointing about those papers? I seem to spy passages in both German, French, and, if I’m not much mistaken, Italian. I didn’t know you spoke Italian!”

My voice was raised to make sure my words were heard over the background noise, but even so, I wasn’t sure whether he heard me at first. For a moment he just kept to the same position, focusing on the papers in front him, before he heaved a great sigh and threw them all across the room, where they gently fell to the floor.

“The problem, my dear Watson, with these dreadful papers, is that there is nothing of interest!” Holmes said despairingly, as he stood up and started rifling through various boxes and containers, looking for more tobacco. “It seems as if nothing of any actual import is happening these days.”

He said this, quite bitterly, while stuffing a handful of tobacco he finally found, into his pibe, then started looking around for a means to light it, in the chaos of the sitting room.

I brought forward a match, striking it and holding it up to my friend, who wordlessly took it and lit his pipe, before blowing out the match, and carelessly throwing himself back into his chair. There, he started puffing bitterly on the pipe.

In that moment, as I was preparing myself for a night of listening to Holmes complaining about the boring nature of London’s, and indeed, the world's criminals, came a knock on the door, and Mrs. Hudson entered.

“Dr. Watson, a telegram for you.” She carefully walked across the room, avoiding the piled up stacks of various objects and shooting Holmes a bitter look. “The state of this sitting room, I am quite -”

“Thank you, mrs. Hudson.” Holmes interrupted loudly, dismissively waiving for her to go away. I sent her an apologetic look as she gave me the telegram, and she started back on her precarious way across the room, mumbling loudly to herself about the mess, before disappearing out the door.

“I wonder who would be sending me a telegram,” I said, “it must be a medical emergency!” I had been enjoying my evening of respite, but if duty called, then I must be prepared to leave at once.

“I don’t think so, dear fellow,” said Holmes, who was now fiddling with some beakers on the settee. “Telegrams aren’t cheap and your patients normally send messengers for you, quite a lot easier to do in London.” He wasn’t looking up from whatever he was doing, and it was quite clear that he wasn’t particularly interested in my new query.

He was quite right though, and with a curious feeling, I opened up the envelope containing the telegram, and read.

“Dear God!” I exclaimed, catching Holmes’ attention. I had stood up to receive the telegram from mrs. Hudson, but upon reading its contents, I sat back down again in my chair.

“May I?” Holmes asked, gracefully leaping over to me, reaching a hand forward. I held the paper out to him, and he plucked it, and read it out loud.

“Dr. Watson, my mother has died. The funeral is in two days. Will you be there? Yours, M. Watson. Huh.” He sounded a bit puzzled.

“Well, your parents and your brother have been dead for quite a while at this point. So this M. Watson… your brother left behind a widow and a child, perhaps?”

I looked up and my friend, and nodded.

“Indeed he did. I haven’t seen his wife, Eleanor, since their wedding, and I have never met their child, although I did hear about the birth. I wasn’t in the country at that time. I know that she is a girl, named Margaret, and she must be nearing her 16th year at this point.. She must have been the one to send this telegram.”

I took a sip of tea, and stared out of the open window. I hadn’t thought about my brother’s widow or child in a long time. The child had been born while I was in Afghanistan, and then my brother had died shortly after. I had meant to go visit them when I finally got back on English soil, but with everything that happened, I had quite forgotten. And now Eleanor was dead and Margaret an orphan.

I looked at Holmes to find that he looked mildly uncomfortable. Matters of grief and relations were not his area of expertise, and I could tell he wasn’t quite sure how to approach this.

“Well,” I said, “I will obviously be going! They were living in Abbotsford in Sussex last I heard, though this telegram is short on details. I shall have to go tomorrow already, to be sure to find the correct address, to make it in time, and to pay my respects to Margaret.”

“Quite,” Holmes agreed, studying me, even as he started to clear away some of his beakers. “Would you like me to join you?”

I startled. He had never asked me such a thing before. Holmes wasn’t a man of any obvious emotions and he preferred to be in an environment where logic and science reigned, and he wouldn’t know anyone there! He would surely be bored out of his mind!

I realised that this was his method of attempting to support me, in his own way, and I smiled at him.

“If there are no other matters you have to attend to in London, I would be delighted.”

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah! Next chapter will come...at some point?


End file.
